Nearly every country in the world has set a central public sector unit entirely devoted to the production, harmonisation and dissemination of official statistics that the public sector and the national community need to run, monitor and evaluate their operations and policies. This central statistical organisation does not produce every official statistic as other public sector organisations, like the national central bank or ministries in charge of agriculture, education or health, may be charged with producing and disseminating sector policy oriented statistical data. The statistical legislation and regulation generally attribute responsibilities and authorities according to statistical domains or functions in addition to those of the central unit.

Some countries are politically organised as federations of states or of autonomous regions; also a specific territory might have been given a partial autonomy. Several of these sub-national regional units have set their own quasi-independent statistical department. A list is presented in Sub-national autonomous statistical services